Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>]

It is not you that is confused, it is the book that is confused. In my humble opinion there is no such thing in Hebrew as "short" and "long" vowels. it is all but the figment of imagination and inventive power of some obsolete "grammarians". The punctuators, the נקדנים of the Hebrew bible did not leave us a user's manual, and we are not even sure if the different signs, say patach and qamets, represent different vowels sounds. 

It is indeed marked in the table I am using:

ד"ר שאול ברקלי 

לוח השמות השלם

הוצאת ראובן מס ירושלים תשל"ג

that DAG-KA is with a qamets under the the D, but that DAG-KEM is with a patach under the D. This is the paradigm, and this is how we punctuate the words if we want to do it "correctly". The "explanation" as to why it is so we leave to חכמי חלם the wise men of Xelem. 

I will add here that the personal pronoun אתה ATAH, or AT, appears also in attachments as AKAH, or AK. ATEM appears to me to be the combination AT-HEM, and AKEM the combination AK-HEM. 

The table of names I mentioned above (there is also a companion table on verbs) are indispensable books of Hebrew grammar. Unfortunately they are out of print, but can often be found used. 

Isaac Fried, Boston University 

On Jan 7, 2013, at 1:50 PM, E wrote:

B"H - 

I have been studying Davidson's Lexicon of Hebrew, in particular the "declension" of nouns they have arranged. 

I am stuck on a concept I can't figure out: in the 2nd declension, which refers mainly to reduction of kamets, they point out that when the grave suffix -chem is added to two words, namely 

YAD and DAM, the resulting forms are YED-CHEM and DIM-CHEM. 

They say that a patach does not result, because the forms segol-shva and hiriq-shva are shorter than the expected patach-shva. 

I am confused as to what this exactly means - what makes one construction shorter than another, when all are short vowels? 

How also, can vowels shorten out of their vowel types, e.g. a kamets moving to the e type segol, and also the i type hiriq? 

I was under the impression vowels do not switch into other vowel types - the reduction is strictly within their own boundaries. 

I am very curious about this question, and subscribed to this list on its merit. I thank anyone who can help. 

Best, 

Aviel Jones

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